Police in Ho Chi Minh City have busted a drug ring, detaining two Thai nationals, one of whom was caught carrying 2 kg of cocaine. Meanwhile, another Thai, a former student, saw her death sentence upheld by a court on Wednesday. Police caught 30-year-old Chaimongkol Suracha hiding 2.06 kg of cocaine inside two photo albums on October 1 when she arrived at the city’s Tan Son Nhat Airport from Brazil. Suracha told police that she had met two Brazilians, Fosta and Mieare, in Thailand. The Brazilians promised to find her a job at a car-exporting company in Vietnam. On August 12, Mieare took the Thai to Vietnam, but later also took her to Brazil, where he handed Suracha over to an African man and left. A group of African men later bought a suitcase for Suracha and gave her a ticket to fly back to Vietnam, where she would be picked up and given a job by the boss of the car company. The men also gave Suracha two albums as a gift for their relatives in Vietnam. The albums were then put into the suitcase. After Suracha was seized, the police allowed her to hand the suitcase, with the drugs inside, to another Thai woman, Pakaporn Thatchun, who had arrived in Vietnam to receive the suitcase as part of the drug trafficking plan that had been arranged by the ring in Brazil. The police later seized Thatchun when she arrived at a hotel on Thu Khoa Huan Street, District 1, to take the drugs from Suracha. Thatchun confessed to police the ring was led by an African man named Risay. She also said she would have transferred the drugs to Thailand if she had not been arrested. The police are expanding their investigation. Death penalty upheld for Thai student In related news, the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court on Wednesday maintained the death penalty for a Thai college student for her role in a methamphetamine ring that spans two continents.

Preeyanooch Phuttharaksa, 23, was sentenced to death on June 26, 2012, after which she appealed for a commutation.

According to the indictment, she flew as far as Togo and Benin, two West African countries, to help several African men smuggle 3 kilograms of the drug into Vietnam last year.

After meeting a Nigerian known only as Nalin at a Bangkok shopping mall, Phuttharaksa said she agreed in January 2011 to make the delivery for US$1,572, plus $1,000 for expenses.

In October 2011, she flew from Thailand to Togo, and then hopped on a bus to Benin to pick up the shipment from two men.

Later that month, after layovers in Casablanca and Doha, Phuttharaksa arrived with the illegal suitcase in Ho Chi Minh City. Customs officials at Tan Son Nhat International Airport arrested her upon discovering the methamphetamine.

Phuttharaksa is believed to be part of a transnational drug trafficking ring run by Africans in Vietnam who recruit schoolgirls to make drug runs.

Before her arrest, Phuttharaksa had sneaked drugs into Vietnam twice, according to the indictment.